Job Characteristics of Teaching and the Development of an Unequal Gendered Division of Domestic Labor

• In Event: 220 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Gender Identity, Housework, and Parenting

Abstract

This paper examines how the job characteristics of the (K-12) teaching profession that led to its reputation as being “family friendly,” also are encouraging an unequal division of domestic labor. As public school teaching remains a largely feminized field, a variety of social forces encourage female teachers to take on more domestic labor in their homes. These include teacher occupational characteristics, being seen as an expert on children by their spouse, and the cultural assumption that motherhood is primary and fatherhood secondary. Occupational characteristics that specifically encouraged an unequal division of labor included job hours that allowed them to work from home in the afternoons, having an extended maternity leave available (but not paternity leave) and having summers off. The data for this study is based on in-depth longitudinal interviews conducted with sixteen couples (32 individuals), comprised of female public school teachers and their husbands, as they experienced the transition to parenthood. Interviews were conducted at three points in time: during pregnancy, during the post-partum period (8-12 weeks after birth), and 9-12 months after the birth of the baby.

Author

• Medora W. Barnes, John Carroll University